Social looking, social referencing and humor perception in 6- and-12-month-old infants

Abstract

Social referencing refers to infants' use of caregivers as emotional referents in ambiguous situations (Walden, 1993). Studies of social referencing typically require ambulation, thereby over-looking younger, non-ambulatory infants (i.e., ≤ 8-mos) and resulting in a widespread assumption that young infants do not employ this strategy. Using a novel approach that does not require mobility, we found that when parents provided unsolicited affective cues during an ambiguous-absurd (i.e., humorous) event, 6-month-olds employ one component of social referencing, social looking Additionally, 6-month-olds who did not laugh at the event were significantly more likely to look toward parents than their counterparts who found the event funny. Sequential analyses revealed that, following a reference to a smiling parent, 6-month olds were more likely to smile at the parent, but by 12 months were more likely to smile at the event suggesting that older infants are influenced by parental affect in humorous situations. The developmental implications of these findings are discussed, as well as the usefulness of studying humor for understanding important developmental phenomena.

The Development of Humor

“…Finally, humor requires sharing something interpersonal, focusing one's attention on both a social partner and the object of the humorous episode. Mireault et al (2014) found that six-month-olds smiled and laughed at an absurd event compared to an ordinary event, even when their parents remained affectively neutral. However, when their parents also smiled and laughed at the event, infants increased their positive response to it.…”

“…In a longitudinal study of infant humor perception from three-to six-months, Mireault et al (2012) found that the majority of the time when acting absurdly to amuse their babies, parents also provided humor cues, both communicating and sharing positive affect. Follow-up studies with five-and six-month-olds found that although they are able to independently appraise an event as funny, they smile and laugh more at the event if their parents do as well (Mireault et al 2014. Interestingly, by 7-months, infants refrained from laughing at an event they had found amusing at 5-and 6-months of age if their mothers-who were performing the event-did not laugh.…”

Humor and Its Socio-Emotional Emergence

“…Until recently, researchers had not investigated whether younger infants also engage in social referencing, in large part because younger infants are not mobile and so could not be put to classic tests of social referencing (Walden et al 2007). However, it is possible that a similar mechanism is in place in early humorous interactions and that parents provide affective cues that guide infants' interpretation of what are initially ambiguous behaviors (Mireault et al 2014).…”

“…Following Reddy (2008)'s assertion that even tickling requires a "social wrapping" to define a stimulus as funny (p. 201), Mireault et al (2014) investigated social referencing among six-month-old infants using humorous instead of threatening events. Although six-month-olds found absurd events funny all on their own and therefore did not need to reference parents, they paid close attention to parental humor cues, shifting their gaze from the event to their parent and back such that parental affect was as salient as the event itself (Mireault et al 2014).…”

“…Although six-month-olds found absurd events funny all on their own and therefore did not need to reference parents, they paid close attention to parental humor cues, shifting their gaze from the event to their parent and back such that parental affect was as salient as the event itself (Mireault et al 2014). In addition, infants who did not independently appraise the event as funny paid considerably more attention to their parents' affect, a behavior known as "social looking", a precursor to social referencing (Walden et al 2007).…”